The pension plans of SBC Communications Inc. and Pacific Telesis Group probably will be merged into a single fund with nearly $20 billion in assets, once the proposed merger of the two baby bells receives regulatory approval. Although spokesmen for both companies said the pension issue has yet to be addressed, most industry observers expect the two operations to be merged in view of their common heritage. Both were spun off from AT&T.
Pacific Telesis has pension assets of about $11.4 billion while the fund of SBC, the acquiring company, has assets of about $8.3 billion.
